


Along Came A Spider

by mariells



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Avenger Bucky Barnes, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Friendships, F/M, Gen, Pietro Maximoff Lives, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Avengers, Redemption, Slow Burn Romance, Strained Friendships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-04-06 01:01:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19052083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariells/pseuds/mariells
Summary: Two and half years after Natasha Romanoff revealed SHIELD for what it really was, you - a fugitive SHIELD agent - are hiding out in Eastern Europe under a false identity and struggling to build something reminiscent of a new life out of the ruins of your old one. But your efforts go unrewarded, and fall apart completely, when a simple recon mission goes catastrophically wrong for the Avengers, landing a gravely ill Black Widow in your lap and forcing you to confront events, emotions and people you would rather keep running from.





	Along Came A Spider

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rewrite of a rewrite of a fic I originally started writing and posting last year under a different title (Rocks and Hard Places). I had an attack of writer nerves and deleted it twice. I don't regret it because it wasn't great, however I really like the plot idea and it won't leave me alone, so here we are back for attempt #3.

"People find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right." - J.K. Rowling

 

* * *

 

It had been raining for nine hours, and you had sat watching it ever since the first drop of rain hit the single-pane glass of the window. Perching on the narrow sill was uncomfortable but it was the only spot where you could watch the storm play out with an uninterrupted view. It was quite the show. Lightning danced along the rooftops of the city and thunder was a constant, rumbling percussion. You drank black tea huddled in the folds of an oversized, threadbare sweater dug out of the bottom of a church donation bin - it's truly useful days long gone but the faint tobacco-spiced musk of the previous owner still clinging to the wool fibres.

The apartment's heating system was broken and your skin goose-pimpled in response to the evening's quiet cold. But it wasn't just the chill of the room that made you shiver, icy dread coiled in your gut like a snake preparing to strike.

The storm, in all its raging glory, was an omen. For what, you couldn't say. Preluded by nightmares you couldn't remember, the anxious anticipation crawling under your skin was warning enough. It had kept you alive more than it had ever failed you.

So you sat by the window waiting. Watching. One hand wrapped around the chipped bone china mug, the other around the antique Makarov pistol normally kept under your pillow.

If someone came, you would be ready. You might not get out alive, but you'd be ready.

The mantra had been running on a loop in your head all day. So far nothing had happened.

The wait was excruciating.

The walls between apartments were solid brick, yet somehow thin enough for the cries of the baby two doors further down the hall to reach you with surprising clarity. You listened, stomach flip-flopping and grip tight on the pistol, trying to ignore the ear-piercing wails in favour of the softer thrumming of the rain against the window.

There were other sounds, too. Footsteps and muted conversations in the corridor, door locks clicking open and shut, chattering TVs and the occasional car on the street below. They were easier to ignore than the infant's squalls and shrieks; which were a knife twisting in your heart, pulling painful memories from the deep graves you had buried them in at the back of your mind. These days screaming of any variety had a tendency to cripple you, but babies’ cries remained the worst.

Your cell phone rang. It was across the room, lying on the kitchen work surface next to your house keys and a fruit bowl that only ever held dust. As far as phones went it wasn't a fancy device, just a little black brick a decade out of fashion. A burner solely used for communicating with the restaurant you worked at. The small screen came to life with a weak glow as the phone vibrated on the countertop.

You stilled at the unexpected blaring of the ringtone, index finger hovering over the pistol's trigger, eyes hard and jaw clenched. Sliding down from the window sill, abandoning your mug on the two-person dining table but keeping a tight grip on the gun, you padded numbly over to the counter. The phone kept ringing; the caller ID flashed on the screen. It was work, as you could have predicted but paranoia had you thinking the worst again.

You let loose a breath you hadn't known you were holding, brow furrowing as you stared down at the burner.

The restaurant was closed because of the weather. The manager, Stepan, had called you late in the afternoon to advise you not to come in for your shift. Wondering if there had been a change of plans, you picked up the phone and accepted the call.

"Hello?"

_"Hi, it's Sylwia."_

One of the girls you worked with. A twenty-two-year-old student and part-time waitress who rented a room above the restaurant for a generously reduced price. The septuagenarian owners of  _Baibuza_ , Borys and Vira, were semi-retired and the third generation to run the family business. Their children had shown no interest in taking the restaurant over from them yet, so rather than sell it they had hired Stepan to handle the day-to-day management; moving out from the apartment above and into a little house just outside of the city, renting the rooms to their employees who needed a place to call home.

You had turned down the offer of a room when you took the job, preferring to keep a safe distance from the people you worked with. Outside of your rostered shifts, you had zero contact with your colleagues. Refusing invitations and stonewalling efforts to befriend you.

And what little they did know about you was false. The name you lived under, where you had come from, why you were there. All of it carefully constructed lies drip-fed to satiate their curiosity and keep them from prying too deeply. It was the only way to keep your cover story intact.

It meant your relationship with your co-workers was a lukewarm affair restricted to courteous, vacuous small talk and the passing of Stepan's instructions back and forth between you all. They didn't hate you, nor did you hate them, but you were purposely aloof and they had learnt to not bother with you more than was required for their jobs. Anything more was wasted effort.

So the phone call from Sylwia was both intriguing and surprising. Stepan always called himself.

"Oh...hi. What can I do for you?"

_"I hate to bother you but the restaurant is flooding, Yana thinks it's sewer water. Do you think you can come and help? We haven't been able to get hold of Stepan or any of the kitchen staff."_

The thought of going outside wasn't an appealing one. The rain's ferocity had lessened but it could still be considered torrential, and the only coat you owned was neither thick nor waterproof enough to protect you from the storm.

But you couldn't say no. As much as you wanted to, as much as the word was on the tip of your tongue - ready to swan dive down the crackly phone line - you felt an immediate pang of guilt. Borys and Vira at the front of your mind.

The restaurant was all they had, really. It was their life and livelihood. Their passion and hard work and sacrifice.

The things you had once had, in your own way. Things that had been stolen from you. That could never be reclaimed.

"How bad is it?" You asked.

_"The kitchen is under two inches and it's creeping up into the dining room. We don't know what to do. Should we turn off the power? The smell is so bad and the carpet is getting ruined-"_

If it was back up from the sewage pipes then the damage would be disastrous. It would cost thousands to fix and twice as much - if not more - if they didn't get the damage under control.

Borys and Vira wouldn't be able to afford a bill like that. 

"OK, I'm on my way."

Sylwia mumbled a hurried thanks and hung up.

You sighed, placing the phone back on the countertop. You turned and eyed the dark window. Rain running down the panes.

The unease that had been haunting you all day rolled like cramps through your belly. Leaving the relative safety of your little apartment seemed like a fool's decision, and not just because of the weather.

You shouldn't have answered the call. You should have let it ring out.

You stripped off the jumper and sweatpants, exchanging their comforting warmth for a cold pair of jeans and a scratchy turtleneck. Every last nerve ending in your body buzzed with apprehension as you laced your boots. You considered the pistol for a long minute, finally tucking it into the back of your waistband. You didn't have a license for it and owning a handgun without one was illegal, but that night the risk of being caught carrying a concealed weapon felt negligible.

If something happened, you would be ready. If nothing happened, it wouldn't matter, but you would be ready nonetheless.

So the saying went: you could take the woman out of SHIELD, but you couldn't take SHIELD out of the woman. It was both a blessing and a curse.

Outside, thunder clapped. Sharp and booming as you crossed your sanctuary's threshold into the communal hallway. Another clap punctuated the turning of the key in the lock. An accompanying flash of lightning illuminated the long corridor before plunging it into total darkness; the building's power cutting out briefly before flickering back to life.

If you had been sitting by your window at that very moment you would have seen a fireball rip through an office building in the neighbouring district. It's roar swallowed whole by the storm.

Instead, the baby was howling and those howls rang in your ears. You stowed your keys and zipped your coat, pulling the hood up over your head in an attempt to block them out. The Makarov's deadly weight pressing against the small of your back was a reassurance.

With a final repetition of your mantra, you stepped out into the storm.

 

~0~ 

She is blind, Natasha realises. The normal shapes and colours of the world having receded like a slow, calm tide behind a veil of Siberian snow until she can only make out the ground directly in front of her feet, and then, not even that.

She can't hear either. Whether that's because of the explosion she left as a thank you card or because of the same thing that has taken her sight. Her ears ring with screaming bells, but their shrill clanging dissolves into white noise and she can't tell if her vocal cords are working either because she can't hear her voice even if she can feel her mouth moving.

Independent of her scrambled senses, her legs surge forwards in an instinctual bid for escape. One hand curled around the handrail to guide her, boots tripping and stumbling down the concrete stairs she counts as the rubber soles skim over their sharp lips.

The buildings' layout is ingrained in her eidetic memory. She knows how many stairs she needs to descend to reach ground level, where the doors are, the disabled security cameras and the sentries. She knows it all but struggles to shift through the information, to pull the facts she needs into the order she needs them.

It's almost as if her internal axis has shifted, misaligning all of her crucial mechanics. She is boiling in her skin and freezing in her bones, numb and agonised, suffocating as she drags in deep lungful’s of air.

Smoky air. Black and acrid. Embers falling like snowflakes. Not that she can see any of it.

The building is on fire because of her. A last-ditch diversionary tactic saving her from capture but too late to stop them gassing her with...well, she doesn't know. Hopefully nothing too serious. There's a bullet graze on her upper arm and another on her calf. Wet warmth leaks from her hairline. Her stomach is full of acid, overflowing into her heart and lungs.

It was supposed to be a cakewalk recon op. Something so below her pay grade Hill hadn't even thought she would be interested in doing it. But she had, mainly because nothing else was going on - the Avengers hadn't had a mission in months - and a bored Black Widow was never a good thing, so it only made sense to volunteer and get out of the compound for a spy's idea of a leg stretch.

She should have relented when Steve tried to convince her to take back up. Sam was willing, as was Sharon.

She should have parked where Hill told her to park. She shouldn't have deviated as much from the plan as she had.

The fingertips of her free hand reach up to the communications device snugly nestled in her ear. She coughs and splutters and wretches, sweat-slick and paling, as she presses the button.

Steve's name gets stuck in the back of her throat. For all her efforts she can't push it out, though she keeps trying.

She doesn't know the line between her and Avengers HQ is dead.

Two floors above, the last surviving soldiers burst through a door. Searching for her. The smoke pouring into the stairwell from the burning upper storeys is thick enough to conceal her and she continues downward, unaware of her pursuers closing in.

After the final five steps her boots make contact with the smooth, flat surface of the ground level. She turns fifteen degrees to her right and collides with the fire exit door. It swings open with a chorus of screeching metal and splintering wood.

The night beyond is wet and cold and deadly.

She knows she won't make it far.

 

~0~

  

The streets of the city were abandoned. Hardly surprising. You hadn't seen a single vehicle - not even a cab - and certainly no other pedestrians in the fifteen minutes you had been trudging in the direction of the restaurant; soaked through and ready to turn for home. You walked with your chin tucked down towards your chest in the vain hope of keeping the rain from seeping under your hood. Despite your efforts, you could feel it tickling your scalp. Your bare hands were shoved into your pockets, the tips of your fingers throbbing from the cold.

Your eyes were fixed on the pavement and you were chewing absentmindedly on your bottom lip. Reluctance remained a heavyweight around your neck and your mood was low because of it. Not that your mood was ever particularly high, but it was lower than normal and that made the night darker, the cold colder, and your journey longer than it all really was.

A murmuring voice pulled you from bleak thoughts. You looked up sharply, eyes landing on a shadow standing in the open doorway of a tenement building; backlit by the warm light of the stairwell.

The silhouette belonged to a small, frail woman wrapped in a housecoat, feet clad in fluffy slippers. Face creased with deep lines; mouth pinched around a cigarette. She was in her forties but looked older. The burning cherry end of the cigarette was a firefly in the darkness, its glow reflected in her pale eyes. Your pace slowed as you passed the woman, who didn't seem to notice you were even there, her focus fixated on the sky over the building opposite. Behind the woman in the doorway, sitting on the bottom step of the staircase, was a man - thereabouts the same age as the woman, but stocky and potbellied; dressed in a dark tracksuit, rolling a cigarette on his knee. A half-drunk bottle of beer stood on the floor by his foot.

Late-night nicotine hit. The last one before bed, no doubt. Nothing to worry about. You continued on.

You didn't get far before another voice caught your attention.

Several floors above your head a window creaked open and a young, incredulous voice split the air.

"Mama! Mama, come look! That building is on fire!"

You stopped and looked up at the boy hanging out of the window. He was uncaring of the rain soaking into his pyjama top, dragged quickly and unceremoniously back inside by a pair of hands you could only assume belonged to his mother. The window snapped shut, muffling a curt reprimand, and you twisted on your heel to look in the direction the boy had been pointing; squinting against the rain that stung your eyes.

It was the same spot in the sky the smoking woman had been staring at. You hadn't bothered to look before; you had figured the woman had been watching the storm.

The storm clouds were dark, but the smoke billowing from the burning building was even darker. Pitch black, as deep and bottomless as a gaping void that had opened up to swallow the world. It plumed and flooded the night's sky, an artery bleeding across the clouds. The raging flames, flickering gold and ochre and a brilliant bright white, were a crown atop the twenty-storey office block, it's tendrils slowly slithering down the floors below to encompass the entire structure. The down-pouring rain, as strong as it was, didn't have the power to quell the fire. All it did was make it hiss and burn brighter.

Passive in your interest, you watched the fire burn for a minute more. You probably would have stayed there longer if it wasn't for the weather, and the fact Sylwia was waiting for you.

A police car hurtled past, siren blaring, fishtailing as it turned a corner at high speed. Heading for the burning building. You could hear more sirens echoing through the streets, all converging on the scene of the fire.

The pistol seemed to pinch the skin it rested against, reminding you that you had somewhere to be. Somewhere - preferably - away from anywhere the police were.

You took the same route you always did when going to and from the restaurant. The quickest, most direct one that didn't involve paying bus fares you couldn't afford. One that took you closer to the scene of the fire than you particularly wanted to be that evening, but you didn't want to spend longer out in the rain than you had to - which the alternative ways you could go would require.

Your head tipped down again and your pace picked up. Your stomping stride had you splashing through the puddles forming on the sidewalks. Up ahead two police officers were hurriedly taping off the junction while four more were banging on doors and ringing buzzers to wake up the residents of homes they considered too close to the burning building to be safe.

You veered off down a side street before any of them could spot and stop you; zigzagging your way along a parallel route, close enough to keep you on track, but far enough away that the sirens were quieter and the back streets were peaceful. No one else was around, which meant there was no one to pay you any mind.

It was just you and the rain and the darkness and the Makarov.

Until a loud crash in a connecting lane brought you to a grinding halt.

You stilled behind a parked truck, then slipped into the dark gap between it and another, similar vehicle for cover. Opposite of your position was the mouth of the service lane, wherein shadows floundered against an eigengrau backdrop of high walls and light-less windows. It was difficult to tell what made them, to even lock down their exact point of origin. The noises that emerged from the darkness were gurgles and moans, wet and pained. Ugly, inhuman sounds that put a chill up your spine and bristled the hairs on the back of your neck.

You reached beneath the back of your coat and pulled the pistol free from its hiding place. The safety disengaged with a near-silent click.

The weight of the weapon in your hand took your thoughts back to your day-long sentry at your window; the mounting perturbation that had plagued you, tying you in knots as you waited for the worst - whatever form it came in - to happen.

Nothing had happened in the humble sanctuary of your apartment, and it was with a twisted humour that you wondered if you had walked straight into a trap. The flooded restaurant could be a ruse, Sylwia - always short of money - could have been paid to call you.

Paid or  _forced_.

HYDRA had no qualms about employing cruel means on innocent people. It tended to be easier than asking nicely - less questions, less time wasted.

It was a sick feeling that bloomed inside you, throbbing waves of panic left you dizzy. Your hands were clammy, worse than they had been all day.

The shadows moved. Twisting and squirming. A hollow, metallic clank reverberated from somewhere amongst them. What followed were weedy, guttural groans, like air being squeezed from a set of near-empty fireplace bellows. It sounded almost like the last breaths of a dying animal.

You dreaded to think what the lure was. The final trick meant to pique your interest and get you to step into the lane.

And you didn't want to, knew not to, but that sound…

_God, that sound._

There was a chance they didn't know you were there. The trucks provided decent enough cover and if you stayed silent and still they might think you had gone another way, giving you a chance to slip out and escape. All you needed to do was find a safe path out of there.

Boot steps - multiple pairs - were a quiet, thumping tattoo against the wet asphalt. STRIKE formation, you knew that sound too well.

They were coming up the lane, heading straight for you. You couldn't seem them so couldn't tell how many there were, but if it was a full team you wouldn't have enough ammunition for a full-blown firefight.

Tell-tale red beams danced through the darkness. Three that you could count. They arced from earth to sky, right to left, and back again in all directions. Searching.

You watched as one of the laser sights swung across the ground and then double backed immediately, settling on a single spot.

"Here. I've found her."

The low, masculine intonation came in heavily accented English. Just loud enough for you to hear.

"Is she alive?" A second voice, distinctly American, asked.

"Yes, but barely."

"I'll call it in. Don't touch her, that shit is deadly."

It took a long minute for the exchange to sink into your brain. The words weren't what you were expecting to hear. They couldn't be talking about you; the context was all wrong - it didn't make sense.

There was no relief. The slithering unease that had been your companion all day remained dutifully there as questions swirled around and around in your head; preventing you from turning tail and running away like your instincts told you to.

Naively you thought you could convince yourself it was the police searching for a suspect, but if it was the police, they wouldn't be speaking English. And they would be using flashlights, not laser sights.

Laser sights meant night vision goggles. There would be no need for those if it was just a run-of-the-mill criminal.

And the sound…

It was almost a death rattle but just as much a battle for life. And there was more to the moans and groans than you had first thought, that became clearer now your brain had switched gears.

A word. Stretched into more syllables than it normally had; the desperation and will it took to force out distorting it into a slurred and obscure facsimile.

Try as you might, you couldn't decipher it.

"Bravo Team to Command, we have the Black Widow in custody. Send transport to my coordinates."

What?

No, that couldn't be right.

The probability was so tiny, so random, that it couldn't be true.

...Could it?

The revelation was like taking a taser to your centre mass. It left you stunned and hollow.

You pressed a hand to your mouth to stifle the wave of emotion that burned and bubbled its way up your throat. Too many to feel simultaneously. Your amygdala short-circuited at the sudden onslaught and you were reeling - like the entire world had been pulled out from under your feet and you were falling, a million miles an hour, down an endless rabbit hole.

Memories - bad ones - were a shadow play projected onto the thin sheets of your eyelids. You didn't want to watch but you couldn't look away.

_What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck._

You didn't know what to do. You counted to ten, repeated  _'what the fuck'_ in your mind a hundred times more and tried to pull yourself free of the riptide washing over you.

You didn't think you would ever see this day. In the two - almost three - years since Natasha Romanoff had brought SHIELD to ruin, revealing HYDRA's hidden face to the public, you had dreamt of what would happen if you ever encountered the Black Widow again. The woman who, in your eyes, was the reason your team had been slaughtered and everything you had ever loved taken from you. You were a fugitive thanks to Romanoff, hiding not just from your own government but HYDRA, and others like them, too.

That was why you dreamt dark things about the Black Widow. But as cold and callous as those scenarios were, always centred around exacting long desired vengeance, this was leagues beyond anything you had the capacity to conjure.

Your emotions were at war. You wanted to run and leave Romanoff to her fate. It would be so easy to disappear and leave them to it, to pretend none of this had happened and carry on with the rickety little life you had begun to build for yourself. Romanoff could rot for all you cared. Romanoff could die miserable and abandoned just like the rest of STRIKE Team Echo had.

And you would, in a way, get the closure you needed. The revenge you had believed yourself due for so long. Perhaps not directly, but the end result would be the same.

However, the idea of Romanoff in the hands of HYDRA was oddly nauseating. Deep down you knew nobody deserved that fate. Even someone you hated.

You squirmed in your hiding place, tussling with your conscience. You didn't know for sure it was  _the_  Black Widow. It could have been someone else who had appropriated the code name; or maybe there was more than one Black Widow, maybe the KGB had a whole regiment of them and this was just one of dozens who had been trained in the Red Room and sent out to do their bidding.

But whoever she was, Romanoff or not, you couldn’t leave her like that.

Even you weren’t that soulless.

You crept out from between the trucks, your footsteps soft and silent as you rounded the back of them and crossed the street; pressing into the wall of the building adjacent to the lane as you worked your way along it.

Pausing at the corner you adjusted your grip on the Makarov before having second thoughts about it. The pistol was tucked back in your waistband, this time at the front - in easy reach for when it was needed.

You took a long look around the corner, studying the scene. You could see them a lot clearer now that you were closer, the shadows weren't quite as deep and fluid as they had appeared from the other side of the street.

There was definitely three of them, no more, and they were keeping a leery distance from the prone form on the ground. Only one of them had their back to you and he was too tall for you to bring down empty-handed. They all were. If it came down to hand-to-hand combat you would be toast, and with back up on the way to support them, you would need to act fast.

The plan you had pulled together, predominantly forged from the rusty spare parts of old missions, was close to useless in the current circumstances. Back at square one, the element of surprise was all you had to your advantage. And that advantage would be fleeting at best.

You would have to wing it.

Out came the pistol again, index finger hovering over the trigger.

You stepped out from the wall's protection, careful to stay directly behind your target so that his comrades didn't see you. Two steps forward, muzzle trained on the pale-skinned gap between his helmet and the collar of his ballistic vest. The fact he wasn't wearing a balaclava told you Romanoff must have caught them off guard; if this had been a targeted takedown on their part he would have been fully dressed and you would have struggled to find a weak spot in the dark.

The gap, a narrow sliver, was your bulls-eye. A foot closer, gun aimed a few degrees higher, and you could put a bullet in his brain.

Your heart was pounding painfully against your rib cage. The rain was in your eyes. The gun was slippery in your hands. Why did it have to be so fucking dark?

You took the final step. Squeezed the trigger firmly. Prayed to anyone listening that you wouldn't screw this up. You could live without saving Romanoff, but you'd rather not die as well.

There was no well-timed thunder to hide the crack of the gunfire. The bullet flew true, catching its victim under his helmet and burrowing into his brain stem as intended. The gunshot startled the other soldiers, who ducked and dodged as they floundered for cover, giving you just long enough to dive forward and catch the dead man as his legs went out from under him; one arm wrapped around his chest to hold him up in front of you, the other threaded under his lifeless arm as you fired again and again in the direction of the others.

They didn't know what was happening but it didn't take long for them to regain composure and return fire. You could feel their bullets punching into their dead team member's ballistic vest and bouncing off his helmet, whizzing past you like angry wasps. Your black jacket camouflaged your arm against his uniform but a lucky bullet found it anyway, fiery pain exploding in your forearm and reverberating along the length of the bones within it.

You yelped between gritted teeth and stumbled backwards. The dead soldier's weight was becoming increasingly difficult to hold up as blood poured from your arm and your grip weakened.

The Makarov ran out of bullets. You dropped it and pulled the soldier's sidearm free of the holster on his thigh. It was bigger, heavier than the Soviet weapon you had grown accustomed to but it would do the job. The safety was already off and the trigger was more sensitive than the Makarov. By luck you managed to hit one of the soldiers in the throat, the through-and-through shot bisecting his carotid. Blood sprayed from the hole in his neck and he fell to his knees, hands clawing at his throat as he tried to stem the bleeding. Failing miserably in his efforts. He slumped face down on the ground; twitching violently as his blood drained out and pooled beneath him.

His comrade was bouncing between yelling at his newly fallen team member and down the comms line, flitting back and forth between English and a language you thought might be Georgian. You had been to Tbilisi once under SHIELD orders, and you thought it sounded similar to what you had heard spoken there. In stilted English he was calling for back up. He was claiming, high pitched with panic and shock, that the third soldier, the one you had killed first - Sabauri, apparently - had gone mad and turned on them.

Even with night vision goggles he hadn't seen you yet. In other circumstances you might have felt a little smug about it, but between the rain and the cover he had taken behind a dumpster, it was more likely his vision was obscured by the angle he was at – you were small enough to be concealed behind the Sabauri's broad frame, hiding you from the last man standing's view.

His attention was split three ways - between you and Sabauri, the Black Widow, and the dying soldier. The distraction just enough to move his aim off centre, several inches over to your left, as his eyes darted between the three points before him.

You let go of Sabauri's body, too fatigued to hold him up any longer. He fell in an identical manner to that of the other soldier and hit the asphalt with a grim thwack.

Not daring to waste a second, you leapt sideways in a wide arc, dropping to your knees as you went. Three gentle presses of the trigger and three bullets hit him in the face; the first fracturing his goggles, the second shattering them completely and embedding shards of tempered glass in his eyes, and third passing through the carnage the first two created - hitting him right between the eyes.

He fell backwards into the brick wall behind him and slid down it. Dead.

As quickly and violently as it had started, it was over.

The single bullet he had been able to squeeze out had kissed the corner of your temple as it sailed by. As much as it hurt, you were uncaring of it.

You stood stock still, breathing hard and fast as you took in the scene before you.

You had done this. For some reason it was hard to wrap your head around.

_You don't have time for this_ , a small voice in the back of your head reminded you.

It was right. More were on their way and you needed to be gone before they got there.

You wiped the gun down with the hem of your turtleneck and put it in Sabauri's hand, wrapping his slack fingers around it. As far as staging a scene went it was a piss poor effort. Not that you cared too much. All you wanted, needed, to do was buy yourself time to get out of there.

You picked up the Makarov and pocketed it, briefly contemplating throwing it in the dumpster. But you could get more bullets easier - cheaper - than you could get another gun.

And something told you being armed would be necessary in the coming days.

Your attention moved to the alleged Black Widow.

The figure, clearly female, was lying on her side - her back to you. She was dressed in an all-black, figure-hugging catsuit; heavy-duty thigh holsters wrapped about both her thighs and connected to a matching belt. Kevlar panels - or at least what looked like Kevlar - followed the curves of her petite, dancer's body. Loose shoulder-length hair, sodden from the rain, looked black and was plastered to her skull.

Tentatively, you crouched down next to the woman and tugged at her shoulder to roll her onto her back.

She did so bonelessly, head lolling towards you. Glassy eyes stared right through you. As if you weren't even there.

Eyes you were all too familiar with.

Nausea raged in your stomach.

Romanoff was pale. Too pale. A feverish heat radiated off her, burning through the thick material of her suit. Her lips were grey and cracked, the skin around her eyes reddened. Blood, still sticky, coated her forehead and matted her hair.

Her lips moved like she was speaking but there wasn't any sound. Her face twitched erratically, as did her limbs.

Christ, she looked so  _broken_. Nothing like the woman - the spy - you had known.

You couldn't help staring at her. Torn between disbelief, pity and something else - something darker.

The moment you had dreamt of had come, and you knew it would likely never come again. You knew it and you quashed all thoughts about it. There wasn't time and it didn't feel right.

So you did the opposite of what you thought you desired.

You stepped over Romanoff so that one leg was on either side of her body and reached down, grabbing the spy as gently as you could. Hauling Romanoff clumsily to her feet, you bent low enough to heave the spy up onto your shoulders. The rain and blood on her suit made for a convenient lubricant, allowing her body to slide helpfully into position. As far as fireman's carries went it wasn't the best, but it would do.

You took a moment to compose yourself, bracing your core against the weight you now carried – that your slender, sinewy frame protested against. Once ready, you staggered out of the lane in the direction you had come, disappearing into the dark streets of the residential quarter. You wouldn't dare take Romanoff to your apartment; the risk was too great. But there was somewhere else you could go. Somewhere discreet, if a little risky. Better than nothing.

For the right sum, Jaglak wouldn't turn you away.

Or so you hoped. All you had to do now was actually make it there.


End file.
